Odds & Ends

A British teenager’s one-man protest against Kentucky Fried Chicken is ending after the 16-year-old says he was punched, tackled and pelted with food while dressed like a giant chicken. Olly Tyler of Westwood, told The Sun newspaper he is a vegetarian and decided to protest outside a KFC restaurant in Trowbridge, England, after hearing allegations of inhumane treatment of animals at processing plants used by the fast food eatery. Tyler spent more than $960 on a 7-foot-tall chicken suit and stood outside the chicken joint shortly before Christmas with a sign asking customers to “Boycott KFC Cruelty.” Tyler says people weren’t exactly swift to join his cause. “People threw sauce and chicken wings at me as well as chicken nuggets. When I left the ground was covered in them,” said Tyler. “One guy punched me in the head. It didn’t hurt but I was really shocked. Twenty minutes later, two guys got out of their car and rugby tackled me to the ground. I have no idea why they did it.” The teenage activist says he’s done protesting KFC and is now working for Greenpeace’s Save the Arctic campaign.

Dateline: Brazil

Prison guards in Arapiraca City, in Alagoas state, arrested a cat attempting to smuggle contraband goods into the prison. The cat was apprehended on Dec. 31, crossing the main prison gate while carrying drill bits, saw blades, earphones, a cell phone, a SIM card and a battery charger. The items were taped to the cat’s body. Officials said the items could have been used to break out of jail and to communicate with people on the outside. A prison spokesperson told the Estado de S. Paulo newspaper, “It will be hard to discover who is responsible since the cat does not speak.” The fuzzy felon was handed over to the local animal control.

Dateline: New Mexico

Federal agents came down hard on a rampant cross-border cheese smuggling operation earlier this month. On Friday, Jan. 4, customs and border protection officers in Santa Teresa confiscated 230 pounds worth of Mexican cheese. The creamy contraband was found in a pickup truck in three large ice chests. The large quantity of queso was considered illegal for transport because it qualified as a “commercial amount.” The unnamed driver, who is from Colorado, was given a $300 fine. According to officials, the seized cheese was destroyed.

Dateline: Wisconsin

A Waukesha woman is accused of using the 911 system to get out of several traffic tickets. WISN-12 television in Milwaukee is reporting that Aisha Jackson is charged with making seven false calls to emergency services. Investigators close to the case say that whenever she was pulled over by police, Jackson would call 911 on her cell phone while officers checked her information. In one case a female caller—presumed to be Jackson—can be heard on 911 recordings reporting “suspicious activity” at a nearby KMart. In each case, officers would be called away from the scene of the traffic stop to investigate, only to find there was no emergency. The criminal complaint shows investigators eventually traced the series of false reports back to Jackson’s phone. She is scheduled to appear in court later this month on seven counts of making false emergency calls.

Dateline: Florida

Police in Vero Beach say 51-year-old Brenda Schumann went on a rampage when she found out her 42-year-old husband was sleeping with another woman. According to TCPalm.com, Schumann stormed into the bedroom of her Vero Beach home at about 2:30 a.m. on Dec. 21, carrying a rifle and threatening to kill both her husband and his lover. After her husband managed to get the gun away from her, Schumann allegedly urinated on the carpet outside the master bedroom and defecated on the kitchen floor. “I found him in bed with a naked chick what was I supposed to do,” she later told an Indian River County deputy, according to the sheriff’s report. After pooping her disapproval, Schumann found a second rifle and began shooting up Christmas decorations inside the house. She was arrested on charges of aggravated assault, domestic violence, battery and resisting arrest without violence. Schumann’s husband told investigators the couple are in the process of getting a divorce and have been separated for months.